Diabetic calorie diets

Above about diabetic calorie diets with the food pyramid help.

Diabetic calorie diets can be planned with the help of food pyramid

Diabetic calorie diet is an effective way of managing blood glucose. This diet is nothing but healthy eating with calorie restrictions. If you follow this diet, it will also help you to lose weight; weight loss reduces the risk of heart disease and diabetes.

Diabetics always need to take care about what they eat. All food contains carbohydrates, proteins and fats which are converted to glucose in the body. This glucose raises blood sugar level if it is not used properly. With the help of insulin glucose is converted into energy. In case of diabetes a person cannot use insulin properly and this results in high glucose level in the blood. So if you take balanced amount of calories (balanced food), it helps you to manage sugar level in the blood which is the main goal of any diabetes treatment.

Before moving on to medications many doctors suggest that a diabetic patient should control their diabetes with diet and exercise. A calorie diet is a healthy diet for diabetes. 1200-1800 is a typical healthy caloric intake range. Each person's calorie need is different; it depends on your body size, your age, weight and energy expenditure on physical activities. The nutritional need also depends on the type of diabetes. According to individual nutritional (calorie) needs a doctor plans the diet. For example, in type 1 diabetes the doctor focuses more on matching of calorie intake with insulin doses. While in the case of type 2 diabetes, diet is planned for weight loss in order to improve the ability of the body to utilize the insulin produced. However, in all type of diabetes whether it is type 1, type 2 or gestational diabetes the goal of diets is similar, which is to keep the blood glucose level within normal range.

With the help of your doctor; first, select the suitable calorie amount for you. Then plan your diet in such a way that total number of calories in your diet is not more than the suggested amount of calories. Diabetic people can eat the same food that everyone else eats the only difference is that diabetics should take care about the amount of food and calories in that food. The diabetes food pyramid and exchange food list helps to plan your calorie diabetes diet. The exchange system provides six groups of foods and in each group there is a list of food items having same number of calories. This is helpful when exchanging the foods in your diet plan. The food pyramid gives you a rough plan of a diet. From that information you can plan your exclusive diet. Grains and starches contain more carbohydrates. Foods in this group include breads, pasta, rice and starchy vegetables; choose 6-11 servings per day of these foods. Leafy vegetables like spinach, cabbage, lettuce, cauliflower etc are rich in vitamins and good for diabetes; eat 3-5 servings of these vegetables per day. Two to four servings of fruit per day is an acceptable amount. Milk products contain more fat than other foods so choose only 2-3 servings of milk products (yogurt, cheese etc) per day. You can include 4-6 ounces of meat and meat substitute per day. Packaged snacks like potato chips, crackers, and candy, cookies contain large amounts of sugar so include only small amount of such foods in your calorie diet.